Posted by Minnie-Haha on May 25, 2005, at 16:40:51
In reply to Re: Dealing with trolls » Minnie-Haha, posted by crushedout on May 25, 2005, at 15:42:58
Here's what I wrote:
I think ignoring them is a good policy in principle, but not in practice. If everyone did ignore them, all the time, without fail, it would probably serve its purpose. But the fact is not everyone does. They might not know to do it, or they may choose not to do it. But whatever the reason, anytime someone doesn't do it (ignore them), you're reinforcing them even more than if everyone responded every time… It's way more likely to draw repeated behavior than predictable reinforcement…And here's what you wrote:
> Actually, that principle only applies when you're trying to extinguish a behavior. So if a troll's undesirable behavior is intermittently and unpredictably reinforced, then when you remove the reinforcement *altogether*, the troll will continue the behavior longer than if you had reinforced it constantly…Are we agreeing? It seems like we’ve expressed virtually the same idea. But I am feeling a little loopy. I’m just saying that the behavior will not stop with a varied schedule of reinforcement, and if it is virtually guaranteed that there will be reinforcement, then the behavior is going to continue. So as a policy, trying to ignore the behavior is doomed to fail. (Unless there is some way to guarantee that there will be no reinforcement, which I think is highly unlikely. It's like trying to stop urban legends.)
> One last note: in my experience, trolls usually end up getting themselves blocked, making all of this moot.
I haven’t had enough experience yet to draw a conclusion about it in general, but it seems to me that that isn’t necessarily the case in some forums.
Minnie
:)
poster:Minnie-Haha
thread:502728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050517/msgs/502821.html